New 2020 data shows jump in Georgia students receiving medical exemptions from vaccines

ATLANTA - From 2008 to 2019, the number of Georgia school-age children granted a medical exemption from a vaccine held steady.

But, in 2020, as the pandemic hit, that number jumped slightly.

Jeannie Rodriguez, an Associate Professor at Emory University's Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing and a pediatric nurse practitioner, says it is too soon to say if this uptick  is a trend, but it is something she and other providers are watching.

"We've always had vaccine hesitancy out there, but I think it seems to have gotten a little bit worse since COVID-19 hit," Rodriguez says.

This uptick in requests for medical vaccine exemptions, she says, may be driven by concerns some parents have about how quickly the COVID-19 vaccines were developed and authorized.

"I believe they are safe and effective, but unfortunately, the misinformation that is out there about the COVID vaccines have bled over to other vaccines as well," Rodriguez says.

Under Georgia law, parents or caregivers can request a vaccine exemption either on religious grounds or for medical reasons.

In order to qualify for a medical exemption, the child's health care provider must certify he or she cannot receive a specific vaccine because of medical condition.

"And, really the way medical exemptions work is they look at each individual vaccine," Rodriguez says. "So, a child may have a medical exemption for one vaccine but maybe not another, so it's an individual thing. "

After a scientifically debunked study published in 1998 suggested the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine may be linked to autism in children,  Rodriguez says, it took decades to reassure anxious parents vaccines were safe.

"I felt like we moved past that, and then COVID hit, and here we are again, where people are a little nervous and anxious," she says.  "I think just the polarization, political polarization, with people kind of using COVID as a political issue, really hasn't helped the situation at all."

The most current data on exemptions is from 2020.

She says pediatric health care providers are watching to see whether the small rise in exemptions is temporary or part of a larger trend of parents leaning away from immunizing their children.

"I think we sometimes forget how devastating diseases like polio or measles or diphtheria can be," Rodriguez says.  "We just don't have a lot of memory about what those diseases were like.  So, we want our society vaccinated, so we don't see those reemerge."